Letters from readers:

Dogs are ‘only animals’

I RECENTLY received a letter stating that ‘dogs are only animals, and whatever countries use dogs as traditional foods we should leave them alone to get on with it’.

That was a very condensed version of the letter, which unfortunately seems to have disappeared into the limbo between webmail and e-mail. So I will answer what I remember of that letter as I have no doubt there are many people out there in la-la land who are of the same opinion.

Hello,
To this writer I will begin by saying that yes, dogs are only animals, and so are humans! You say we should respect traditional food sources and leave the countries alone to eat dog when they wish. Well, respecting ‘traditional’ sources of food would mean that we were quite happy for countries like Papua-New-Guinea, Scotland, New Zealand, Fiji, and many other countries to continue with cannibalism. In some places dogs have been considered ‘not food’ for longer than people have been considered ‘not food’.

And in many countries that never practised cannibalism there was the almost as bad practise of using anyone with dark skin as slaves and unpaid workers because they were ‘only animals’!

Fortunately as time goes on hopefully the human race progresses (or should I say the human races progress, but at different rates) and now we are in an era when, in the more advanced countries and states, cruelty to any animal – from wildlife through dogs and farm animals and down to turtles and reptiles – can earn a very large fine and/or a stiff jail sentence for the perpetrators. This I applaud and hope all countries will reflect the same feeling and positive action in at least the distant future or sooner.

The facts are simply that civilised countries must never be sympathetic towards uncivil action of any kind, traditional or not, where people from other cultures are concerned, otherwise that country will eventually become as debased and uncivilised as those allowed to contaminate it.

Today, we allow food animals to be killed for food (personally I don’t eat animal but think no less of people who do eat red meat) but we expect them to be killed in a humane way. That is why we have abattoirs that are regularly inspected and killing methods are always being “improved”.

But the fact is that most dogs that are killed for food are tortured and bashed to death, some being torched alive or hung up by their necks or back legs … and most in the name of “an aphrodisiac” – this largely in countries where aphrodisiacs are the absolute last thing the country needs! The cruellest of practices on animals can of course be found in countries that are also cruellest to fellow humans … because humans are also “just animals”.

However, because we are human animals and have the ability to plan and scheme along with a desire for wealth and power, we can also organise legal forms of any moronic action that will make us money – dog breeding farms for meat and fur, dog fighting rings, puppy farms, and other scams. The Chinese and Korean farms are run by international businessmen and women, and they don’t care where they get their stocks. They have buyers world-wide. But what else would one expect from a country that allows deer and fawns to be sold on the roadsides for meat – they are alive, but their front legs are broken so that they can not run away.

Most of the recent emphasis on “traditional” dog eating is simply advertising hype organised by those who profit from such operations. In the Philippines the so-called “traditional” use of dogs as food never actually was a tradition – there was one single tribe that consumed dog on very rare occasions when a specified celebration was scheduled, but today the media hype would have us believe that all Filipinas had dog as their Sunday roast!

In the China and Korea of old such was the poverty of many that a local homeless dog was all the family may have eaten for a week. But today, the questionable “tradition” is carried on and highly publicised by those motivated by profit. The aphrodisiac quality has been invented to boost marketing and the profit margin (users will pay more for an aphrodisiac than for ‘dinner’).

Make no mistake about it – consuming dog flesh has never been as “traditional” as it is right now and that is because the leaders of all countries have never had to tread so carefully to avoid being classed as “unsafe” in a world that promotes “political correctness” above all else. Those in the marketing business know just how to turn the fad of today to their own advantage.

Dogs chose to be the companions of humans centuries ago, and since then I would like to think that our understanding of dogs has leapt forward with each century. But we have a long way to go before we completely understand them and their complex communication systems. We have a lot to answer for – we have bred dogs for jobs, dogs for special purposes and dogs for show, and in the process have brought them heart disease, arthritis, back pain and degeneration, short lives, eye disease, hip and elbow degeneration, and a whole stack of other ills. We have forced them to fight and have starved them and treated them cruelly. But they remain loyal and helpful and willing to please. Humans have definitely got the best of that bargain! Only animals? Yes – but so are humans! - Ed